Proprietors of fast food restaurants are always searching for ways to cook food faster, cleaner and less expensively. Many fast food restaurants serve french fried potatoes so apparatus is needed to cook the french fries quickly, cleanly and inexpensively.
The most common method of cooking french fries is deep frying in hot fat or oil. The potatoes are placed in a basket which is lowered into the hot fat or oil. Deep fat frying takes a relatively long time and is relatively dangerous. The hot fat or oil is a potential fire hazard and dangerous to personnel. A deep fat fryer will therefore generally increase the insurance premiums of a restaurant.
Forced convection ovens are generally safer than deep fryers for cooking french fries and similar food products. Forced convection ovens blow hot air over the food until the food is sufficiently cooked, but it is difficult for the air to heat the food product sufficiently to evenly cook the food in a short time. Another problem associated with forced convection ovens is how to direct the stream of air to insure that the food is cooked uniformly. In some ovens the food is placed in a cage which is rotated in a stream of air. However, such ovens are unsuitable for food products such as pizzas or sandwiches which may be destroyed by the tumbling action.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,503,760 issued Mar. 12, 1985 to Pryputsch, et al. a drum rotates around the food. The forced hot air blows against the food product through a hole in the drum. As the hole in the drum rotates around the food products the air blows against the food product from different angles.